Who Knew (That The Only Thing I Needed Was To Be With You)
by Ella Press
Summary: Prompt by FEYRAWR on Tumblr: What might have happened during the Zeta party if Danny and the others hadn't busted in to capture Carmilla? - or, the piece in which I imagine a more understanding Laura Hollis.


Everything was going according to plan. Laura was convinced of this. She took pride in herself for orchestrating the steps needed to lure Carmilla in tonight. Granted, the idea to use Laura as bait had been LaFontaine's, but Laura had come up with the rest of the plan on her own.

She'd thrifted the vintage, off-the-shoulder dress she was currently wearing, spent hours planning her hair do —finally deciding on a ponytail-braid combo to better expose her neck. She'd even put on of some of her vanilla perfume, remembering that she'd once heard Carmilla commenting on how it made her smell like a cinnamon roll.

Danny, Perry and LaF were already at the Zeta party, scouring the masses in search of the dark haired —and probably— supernatural woman. She shouldn't worry so much. Laura wouldn't be alone tonight. Her friends had her back.

A drumming-like sound pulled her out of her thoughts, making her jump. Laura's ancient phone was buzzing with a new text message. She knew she was on edge, and yet there was nothing she could do to change the course of the evening now. Carmilla was waiting for her, and she _would_ find her.

Laura walked over to her desk and picked up the phone. Flipping it open, she sighed in relief when she saw who the sender was. She mentally crossed her fingers, hoping beyond hope that her friends had already captured the vampire and that she would not have to put on a show tonight. The contents of the text, however, sank her spirits even lower than they were.

 _Still no sign of her_ , wrote Danny, _When r u coming?_

The phone was vibrating, the tremors running up her arm as Laura typed out a reply. Her throat felt small all of a sudden and breathing became a difficult task.

 _I'm finishing up here. Be there in a mo'._

The phone fell to the desk with a loud thunk. Laura put her hands over the table with her filming equipment, letting her spine disengage, feeling the dread rising and flowing in her blood. This was not the time to be having a breakdown. She blindly fished for her desk chair and plopped down on it. Her eyes closed, the effort of calming her heartbeats occupied her thoughts. She could do this. She wasn't in any kind of danger. If her crappy roommate had wanted to kill her, Laura was pretty sure she would already be dead.

 _Like Elsie_ , she told herself.

No. She couldn't think like this, not with the task she had to do still ahead of her. What she needed to do was to grow some lady balls and get her act together. She could not afford to crumble in the face of disaster. A lot of lives depended on her doing her job and seizing that awful, mysterious, secretive, attractive… monster! Failure was not one of the steps she'd concocted for this plan.

But just in case things did go sour… Laura turned on her camera, ready to leave some strong evidence should something supernaturally bad happen to her before the others could help her. Considering she was about to put on the show of a lifetime, Laura reckoned she might as well start right now. She remembered the look of disgust on Danny's face when she'd shown her the dress she had bought for the party. And her snarky remark about looking like a damsel from the cover of a romance book. Inside her mind, Laura liked to believe that Danny secretly wished Laura were wearing the dress for her. But, of course, that was just wishful thinking on Laura's part. Danny was her friend, there was nothing else going on there. Maybe.

Laura started verbally crossing off things from her list, finding the action to be somewhat soothing. If she was concentrating on relating data to her viewers, she wasn't thinking about the imminent encounter with her brooding roommate at the Zeta party. A party crowded with people. Witnesses. There was no way that Carmilla would do anything to her with so many people around. Right?

Yes, she was committed. To save the girls at the university, Laura was willing to be the sacrificial lamb. She just hoped her sacrifice wouldn't go all the way to its usually gruesome end. Images of bloody lips and snarling mouths ran rampant in her head. She could feel bile rising in her throat thinking that she could end up as Carmilla's nighttime snack.

 _And_ , she thought before telling her viewers, "Not end up digested in the process. Fingers crossed on that last part."

She hadn't even finished speaking when the door suddenly opened, filling her ears with electronic music. She swivelled the chair towards the sound, a reflex more than a conscious effort, and was shocked to see Carmilla standing just outside the door. She could not, however, figure out which kind of shocked she was.

Oh wait, there it was. Laura was scared, definitely terrified.

Holding a bottle of champagne and two glass flutes, Carmilla entered the room and shut off Laura's only means of escape behind her. Two black, cat-like eyes fixed on Laura's face and the snarling that Laura'd been dreaming of suddenly appeared right before her. At this point, Laura didn't care about the blood rising to her cheeks and the sound of her own raging heartbeat touching the vampire's senses. Hopefully, Carmilla would misjudge those signs and attribute them to Laura's general dorkiness. Because there was no way in King's Cross heaven that Laura was actually, really, undoubtedly blushing. Carmilla's bare skin had nothing to do with that, no. Laura needed to focus. Carmilla was here, and the plan —albeit somewhat different than what she'd had in mind— was in motion.

From her post at the door, Carmilla's eyes raked over her body, raising goosebumps all over her. "Don't you look like a virgin sacrifice," she said in her dark, sultry voice.

 _Okay_ , Laura mentally sighed, if such a thing was even possible. _Looking like a virgin sacrifice is kinda what I was going for_ , she thought. And to hear it said like that… it eased some of Laura's fears. It did not do anything to calm down her nerves, though. All it did was elevate her nervousness to unprecedented heights. But she had a mission, and she had to keep going.

Maybe humour would help her case. "I'm not the one in a corset," she said, trying to relieve some of her tension. But, no. All that did was permanently imprint the image of Carmilla wearing a tight black corset in her mind. _Awesome_. If she could kick herself under her desk, she would have broken her damn leg already. And now Carmilla was coming closer and all Laura could think of to say was, "Which… wow."

Ladies and gentleman, give a round of applause for the master of eloquence: Fraulein Laura Hollis!

But, no. Was she… did Carmilla just smile at that greatly put statement? Oh. She did. Okay, so maybe what Laura needed was a bit of humour. She decided to address the ridiculously expensive bottle of champagne that Carmilla was carrying.

"Also… what is happening there?" she asked, pointing at the bottle and the flutes in Carm's hands. Objects that were very close to an area that Laura always pretended not to glance at when her broody vampire roommate wasn't looking. So yeah. More fun images forever scorched in her brain.

Carmilla slowly, deliberately sat down on her own bed and crossed her legs with feline grace. Could she be enchanting Laura with her vampire magic? That had to be it. Laura could feel the pull coming from the other woman as forcefully as if Carmilla were dragging her along with her.

"Well," said Carmilla, "the more I thought about a bonfire with those lackwits, the less interested I was."

Did vampire magic work if the vampire wasn't looking directly into your eyes? Laura didn't remember reading anything about it in her many books on the subject. But maybe with Carm it was different? Because, even though she was currently serving Laura and herself a drink, her dark eyes surveying the task at hand, Laura could still sense her spell running through her veins.

Her phone buzzed then, a new text lighting up the screen. Laura jumped because of her damn phone for the second time tonight and grabbed it in a flash that made Carmilla pause. "Sorry," Laura said. "It's my dad telling me to be careful tonight." _Half truths, keep to half truths, Hollis._ "I told him I was going to a party and he's scared some faceless frat boy is going to do something to me."

The text was most obviously not from Papa Hollis, but rather, from a very distressed Danny Lawrence.

 _Laura what is taking so long?! Do u need me to come get u?_

Laura looked up from her phone and saw that Carmilla had deposited the bottle on her desk and was holding the two champagne-filled flutes in her hands. A small frown crowned her features and if Laura didn't know any better, she'd say that Carmilla was looking very understanding. "Tell your father not to worry," said Carmilla. She locked her gaze with Laura's, keeping a firm hold on the younger girl. "You don't have anything to fear as long as I'm here."

Laura turned those words over in her head, searching for any double meaning and coming up empty. She could see it written in Carm's eyes that she meant what she said. But how could that be possible when Laura was sure that she was responsible for all those girls' disappearances?

"Parties should be a shimmering moment of possibility," Carmilla said. For once, she sounded… unrestrained. Honest. Real, even. Those eyes of hers had cast a serious spell on Laura, a magic the human could feel rising from her belly, going all the way up. "They should not be made up of a collection of brutes around a piece of flaming driftwood. That's why I thought to bring the party here. To you."

Laura could feel the world spinning under her and the only thing tying her down was Carmilla's smoldering gaze. Her breathing hitched and flares went off in her head, their lights spelling _Careful with the monster's wizardry!_

But, looking into the other girl's eyes, reading the lines that marked her beautiful face without finding in them a trace of evil, Laura was beginning to have some second thoughts. She seemed to be remembering everything that had happened so far, and she was pretty sure that vampire magic was meant to make you forget everything they didn't want you to know. Or so said Laura's extensive book collection on vampiric topics.

Her mobile buzzed again and Laura looked down, severing the connection between her and this new, vulnerable girl before her. _LAURA SAY SOMETHING,_ Danny had sent. _If u don't reply now, I'm coming 2 get u._

 _NO_ , typed Laura viciously. _I'm making her talk. If you come, you'll ruin our chances of finding out who's brainwashing the campus's female population._

She looked back up and found Carmilla patiently waiting for her to finish texting "her dad". "I'm sorry," Laura told her. "He gets a little intense sometimes."

"That's all right," said Carmilla, a small smile tugging at her lips. "I know all about intense parents." Carm's eyes fell and her smile faded and the sadness that radiated from her seeped into Laura's skin and she did not like it at all. "Trust me, you do not want to meet my mother."

Inside her chest, Laura's heart twisted the wrong way a little too hard.

Again, her phone interrupted them. She needed her friends to back off right this second. She was making tremendous progress here, and they were constantly getting in her way.

 _OK_ , wrote Danny. _But u have 1 hour. Then we're coming._

 _Fine_ , Laura replied. "I'm just gonna…" she said, holding up her phone and looking at Carmilla.

The other girl looked, thankfully, like her usual self again. Shoulders back, head up. Smooth neck… and shoulders… all of…

 _Whoa. Stop right there, Hollis._

Laura tossed her phone on her bed and turned back around to find Carmilla holding back a smile. She had to admit, Carmilla's whole face seemed to light up when she allowed her real self to come up to the surface. Oh, but listen to this load of hippogriff crap! Carmilla's real self? How would Laura know what Carm's real self was like? She didn't, and, surprisingly, that was the beauty of this evening. Laura had no doubt in her mind that Carmilla had lowered several of her reinforced walls and was letting her glimpse into her life, even if it was for a little while.

 _The plan, Laura. Stick with it._

"Soooo, what did you have in mind? Dancing in the hallways and drinking this…" She took one of the flutes Carm was offering and held it up. "Ludicrously expensive champagne," Laura finished. Seriously, though. That had to have cost more than one semester of Laura's tuition. "Where did you even find that?" Her eyes were as big as plates, her astonishment through the roof. And Carm seemed to be enjoying watching as Laura got all flustered.

"I have my methods," she replied simply. As if that were an actual answer. Laura frowned and Carm picked up on the blonde's annoyance, for she continued explaining. "They served champagne at the first party I ever attended."

 _Okay. Strange choice of words,_ Laura thought. "You say that like it was a hundred years ago…"

And suddenly, a terrible thought crossed Laura's mind. What if Carmilla had spiked the drink? That was a real possibility. Although, she was starting to believe Carmilla wouldn't actually do that. But just in case, she put the flute down on her desk.

"Feels like more than that. Like something seen underwater…" Carmilla went on, examining the contents of her glass.

The bubbles bursting in the champagne were trying very hard to mimic what Laura was currently feeling. Little starbursts exploding all over her skin, breaking her resolve. Laura's plan didn't fill her mind anymore. It was, in fact, retreating to a corner far, far from reach.

"Observed from a great distance." Carmilla lost interest in the glass and its secrets and looked again at the small, quivering human. "God, I'm a nostalgic idiot tonight." Carmilla's eyes roamed Laura's face, ran down from her neck to her previously-planned-exposed shoulder and made Laura feel like she was on fire. The vampire's eyes kept their downwards path and came across Laura's naked wrist. "You're not wearing your charm," she said. Laura could bet that Carmilla actually sounded worried, and she wasn't sure how it made her feel.

"Oh," Laura said, trying to come up with a plausible excuse for her not to be wearing the batwing thing. "Yes! It just… didn't go with my outfit."

Seriously, Laura? That's the best you could come up with.

"Well, you shouldn't've taken it off. It's not gonna work if you're not wearing it." Anxiety was creeping into Carmilla's voice in high enough levels that even Laura's human hearing was able to pick up. Carmilla set her flute down beside Laura's, her eyes frantically searching for the bracelet she'd made for the tiny human.

"Oh. I'll be sure to tie on my cool batwing bracelet first thing." Oh man, this was going downhill, and fast. Laura didn't want Carmilla to get suspicious, but she wasn't sure what to do anymore. This was definitely nothing like what she'd planned. It was scary. So scary, that it made Laura do things she didn't even want to do. Like let out a nervous, girlish laugh.

 _Oh, Tenth Doctor, please help me._

"Look," Carmilla said. "If you didn't like it, you could've just said something."

Laura could hear how pissed off she was. Could they go back to staring into each other's eyes and telling secrets to one another?

Again… what was going on? Now Laura did think that Carmilla was holding her under her spell. Funny thing was, she wasn't sure it was such a bad thing. Then again, Laura didn't even know where the sky and the earth and the sea were anymore. Her judgement was beyond questionable at this point.

Eager to fix her little mistake, Laura said, "No! I-I totally liked it. It was really nice of you—"

Before she could even move or register what was going on, Laura felt Carmilla chuckle beside her. Her chair was halfway turned to her bed, where her phone lay, when she heard her roommate sigh deeply. Laura could have sworn that she could even hear Carmilla smiling.

"I'm sorry, creampuff," Carmilla said.

She _was_ sorry. Laura heard her sincerity in that blues' singer's voice she had. And that, more than anything else, was what made her turn back around.

Carmilla was looking at the floor, a defeated shroud covering her figure. "Here I am, telling you you have nothing to fear, while the only thing that is making you jump… is me."

The vampire lifted her gaze and found Laura's concerned stare. Laura saw her shift from vulnerable to downright confused and back to put together in the span of a couple of seconds. Which, in Laura's book, was actually pretty impressive, considering how long it usually took her to read other people. Maybe there was something else about Carmilla that struck a chord deep inside of Laura.

"That's not—" said Laura. "That's not true." And it wasn't. At least, for now, the only thing scaring Laura was whatever else could have taken the girls from the campus and turned them into pod people. Because Carm couldn't have done that. Right? Or maybe she had, but not of her own accord. Laura had to believe that. She was holding on to that thought like it were her own broken door keeping her afloat after a shipwreck. Carmilla couldn't be all that bad.

The smile that bloomed in Carm's face after hearing those words was quickly becoming Laura's favourite snapshot of hers. Tiny brain workers were already framing it and hanging it up inside Laura's mind palace. And then Carmilla chuckled, and Laura wondered if she'd ever heard her make that sound before. She would be lying to herself if she said that it didn't spark a hundred mini fireworks inside her veins.

Carm's hand brushed her skin as she started pulling Laura's chair towards her, convincing Laura that she would find a burn mark there when she looked for it later. She couldn't look into Carm's enticing eyes anymore, not if she wanted to keep her cool. One hour, Danny had said? Laura's mind reeled, making her throat dry. A lot could happen in sixty minutes. She didn't even notice the trail her warm brown eyes were carving into Carmilla's body until she reached her face and saw something that made her belly tingle and twist in an unexpectedly pleasant way.

The vampire was biting on her lower lip, adding more fuel to Laura's already blistering heat.

 _Breathe, Laura. You got this._

"God, what am I doing?" Carmilla asked herself out loud. "Naïve, provincial girl. Entirely too tightly wound."

 _Laura, focus. You got this. You got this…_ this voice in her ear, Carmilla's face too close to hers, this feeling like the left side of her body was burnt beyond repair.

 _You're not helping, brain._

"Such a cliché," Carmilla whispered. Laura could see her out of the corner of her eye, see the hunger in those pitch black eyes as she stared at Laura's neck. "I oughta know better," she said as an afterthought.

 _Wait, what?_ "Gee, thanks," Laura spat out, still making sure not to taunt the vampire. But, as she kept looking at her, she saw that Carmilla hadn't meant it maliciously. And she was sure she knew enough about her by now to know when Carm was trying to be mean.

She certainly wasn't being mean now. Far, far from it, in fact.

Laura hoped that Carmilla wouldn't notice the way her chest rose and fell in rapid motions, or see the blood pooling in her cheeks again.

"And yet…" Carmilla said, her fingers burning a path on Laura's shoulder. "There's something about you." Emboldened by Laura's positive reactions, Carmilla grabbed Laura's ponytail, gently running it through her fingers. Laura's heart lodged itself up in her throat. She was sure it would try to break loose any second now.

"Maybe it's my keen fashion sense," Laura said, again using humour as a means of escape. She was trying not to think of Carmilla practically undressing her with her eyes —there were girls in danger out there!— but that was easier thought that done.

Carmilla let her hand rest on Laura's back, igniting every nerve ending where skin touched skin. Laura felt the pull again, shining out of Carm's magnetic eyes and burrowing into hers. She could smell the champagne on the vampire's lips and the urge to taste it was suddenly overwhelming.

"No," Carm said. "It's definitely not that."

Her eyes searched Laura's, looking for signs of discomfort and finding none. Laura let go of everything that wasn't Carmilla. Her plan lay forgotten in her brain like her phone lay discarded on her bed and her eyes lay on those plump, soft-looking lips in front of her.

Laura could see Carmilla swallowing hard, and seeing that reminded her of the other girl's weakness. Carmilla wasn't as invincible as she would have others think. Laura was floored by the vampire's decision to let her see that far into her.

Laura turned the chair all the way around so that she was facing Carmilla, their foreheads inches apart. She drew courage from Carmilla's loud intake of breath and the way her shoulders stiffened. _Now it's her turn to be shocked_ , Laura thought. _Good_.

Carmilla had let her hands fall to her sides. Laura could see her fingers twitching as the vampire was unsure of what to do with them. Inhaling with deep purpose, Laura put her hand over Carmilla's, feeling the other girl's hand tense and relax as she took in what was happening. This turning of the tables was working splendidly in Laura's favour and she intended to make the most out of it.

Both her and Carmilla were looking at their joined hands and it was now Laura's turn to make Carmilla look at her. Laura shut her eyes, pursing her lips and thinking, _Wow, I'm either going to make it or break it with this. Here we go._

Opening her eyes, she found herself falling into two black pools of desire, open wide just for her. Carm was waiting for whatever Laura was going to say or do. She was giving her the time and space she needed, and for that, Laura felt immensely grateful.

So, before she could give it a second thought, Laura said, "Carm, do you know what's happening to the girls in the campus?"

Carmilla sighed, frowning. "Yes," she said. Simple as that. There was a melancholy about her, in the way her face fell and her shoulders sagged. Her head moved hither and thither and her elegant hand came to rest on Laura's cheek. It was all Laura could do not to moan in appreciation. "But, Laura, trust me on this. I will not let anything happen to you."

Laura hadn't realised she had shut her eyes, nor that she was leaning into Carmilla's hand. She opened her eyes and looked into Carmilla's… and she knew.

She saw it in her mind, as clear as a daytime sky. She heard the truth pouring out Carm's words and heart, into her own. She knew that Carmilla was not to blame for the crazy things happening at Silas. How could this fragile vampire be responsible for what they had been accusing her of? Carm had said that she knew what was going on, but admitting to that and being the dark mastermind behind what was happening were two completely opposite things.

Laura saw how the way Carm's chest heaved matched her own and her conviction grew stronger. Carmilla was just as afraid as she was. Perhaps even more than her.

"Laura," she said in an anguished voice that made Laura want to wrap her up in a warm blanket and never let go. "Do you believe me?"

There was really only one thing Laura could say as she let her forehead rest against Carm's. Never in a thousand years would Laura have thought she'd be doing this tonight. Her voice was soft, but she knew the vampire would hear her and know she was telling the truth. She opened her mouth and the words tumbled out. "I do."

But before she was even done speaking, Laura felt Carm's free hand wrap around her neck, imprisoning her in the best of ways. Her two feeble words found themselves being swallowed whole by the last person Laura had even thought she'd be close to tonight.

Laura wouldn't have thought it possible coming from the hardened vampire, but Carmilla's kiss was the softest, most languid kiss she had ever experienced. Her toes curled as she felt Carmilla's tongue brushing hers, the taste of the champagne she'd brought with her still present on her lips. She couldn't hold her moan back this time, and she soon found that she'd been right in letting it go, for she was rewarded with a smiley kiss, so much better at erasing her fears than anything else. Laura took stock of where her hands had landed, when the vampire broke the kiss, still smiling, and grabbed her face with both her hands. Now that Laura's hands were finally on Carmilla's strong thighs, she realised that she'd been spending way too much time thinking about them.

She lifted her eyes to Carmilla's, found her smiling from ear to ear. Carmilla's teeth glistened under the harsh dorm lights, adding to the beauty of the moment. Laura saw Carmilla's fangs elongating without her even meaning to, an involuntary reflex. The vampire's smile was beginning to fade and that was the last thing Laura wanted right now. Tonight, Laura learned that Carmilla's smile was contagious. She felt her own lips twitching upwards, her heart soaring with revelations about herself and the world she hadn't even known had been veiled all this time.

Laura licked her lips and closed the distance the vampire had created by pulling back. Her lips found Carmilla's again, making her drunk on the feeling of her, and, tentatively, she touched Carm's fangs with the tip of her tongue.

Laura felt the electric shiver that ran through Carmilla replicate inside of her. Now it was Carmilla's turn to utter a sound that would accompany Laura's lonely nights for days to come.

As she struggled to breathe (a strange thing, seeing as she was a vampire), Carmilla whispered a single word. " _Laura_."

And in that moment, Laura knew that the way the vampire said her name would never be rivalled.


End file.
